For 25 years I wrote words that weren’t my own. At the Department of Commerce, in the Speaker’s office, at the RNC, for elected officials and whoever else I worked for. That’s the job. The best communicators are the ones you never see.
Alethia Jackson calls it being the whisperer. When she invited me onto The Power Within, her podcast about power, influence and modern leadership, I got to be the one answering the questions for a change. This week The Friday Reporter is sharing that conversation.
Alethia founded The Ultimate Power Play, a community of women leaders across health care, finance, technology, government and culture. She opens every interview the same way: how do you define power? Where I landed is that power is the ability to move something. A person, a decision, a conversation. Not the biggest title or the longest résumé. The ability to read a room and then act on what you see.
I believe the quietest person in the room is often the most powerful one, and I spent most of my career being that person on purpose. Noise gets clicks. The people who sit back and take stock are the ones who actually move things.
But staying quiet for a client is strategy. Staying quiet about your own point of view is something else. At 53 I finally have enough confidence (and enough gray hair) to share mine. When you’ve spent a career advancing other people’s voices, finding room for your own feels almost uncomfortable.
Alethia knows the feeling. Early in her career she would sit in meetings and hold back a point, figuring someone else would make it. A mentor told her that what she was thinking had value. She was in that room to take up time and space.
Someone else will say it, sure. Nobody else will say it from your experience. Imposter syndrome might be the most overused phrase of 2026, and there’s a reason it’s everywhere.
Since I started Authentically Speaking, colleagues have told me it gave them the courage to share their own points of view. That’s the part that keeps me writing.
We closed on legacy. Lately I’ve been running elevator pitch trainings, teaching everyone from the front desk to the C-suite to say who they are, what they do and why it matters in the ride from the first floor to the third. It seems small. It’s the same lesson I had to learn myself.
On the way out, Alethia said people who help others communicate give them power and voice. I spent 25 years giving mine away. It turns out you’re allowed to keep some.
Listen to my conversation with Alethia Jackson on this week’s Friday Reporter: [EPISODE LINK]. Find The Power Within wherever you get your podcasts and The Ultimate Power Play at powerplayseries.org.
Pull Quotes
“I spent 25 years writing the words that were not my own… I now feel like I have enough confidence and enough gray hair to share my own unique point of view.” — Lisa Camooso Miller
“I’m there to take time and space and to have that voice.” — Alethia Jackson
“People who help others communicate give them power and they give them voice.” — Alethia Jackson
Takeaway
Spend a career giving other people their voice and you earn the right to use your own.
